Description
Scitus Academics LLC The Economics of Food Security by Kelsey Porcher
Food security as a concept originated only in the mid-1970s, in the
discussions of international food problems at a time of global food crisis.
The initial focus of attention was primarily on food supply problems - of
assuring the availability and to some degree the price stability of basic
foodstuffs at the international and national level. That supply-side,
international and institutional set of concerns reflected the changing
organization of the global food economy that had precipitated the crisis. The
present artifact reviews selected key challenges regarding food security
from both an academic and policy-oriented angle. By the mid-1990s food
security was recognized as a significant concern, spanning a spectrum from
the individual to the global level. However, access now involved sufficient
food, indicating continuing concern with protein-energy malnutrition to
incorporate food safety and also nutritional balance, reflecting concerns
about food composition and minor nutrient requirements for an active and
healthy life. Food preferences, socially or culturally determined, now
became a consideration. The potentially high degree of context specificity
implies that the concept had both lost its simplicity and was not itself a goal,
but an intermediating set of actions that contribute to an active and healthy
life. The continuing evolution of food security as an operational concept in
public policy has reflected the wider recognition of the complexities of the
technical and policy issues involved.
The Economics of Food Security addresses important issues of food security
in their wide-ranging selection of the most influential published
contributions in this area of study. The text looks at the origins of the concept
of chronic food insecurity, the implications for measurement, and proposes
the need for a complementary investigation into the implications for
transitory food insecurity of trade liberalization. This Book summaries that
food insecurity traces to poverty, that poverty must be addressed by
economic development, and that economic development flows from
application of the standard model that is now mainstream economics. The
Book will be of interest to all academics, policymakers, international
organizations and students working in this area.